Hard as Stone (Passion in Paradise: The Men of the McKinnnon Sisters)

by Sarah O'Rourke

  “I can’t give you what you want!” she yelled shrilly, her fingers tightening on the phone. “Leave us alone!” Tanner laughed cruelly again and Harmony sagged against the cement block bathroom wall. “I can’t give you what you want, Tanner,” she repeated, more calmly this time. “It’s not mine to offer. Not anymore.”

  “My employer doesn’t take no for an answer, Harmony, and neither do I.” Tanner went silent for a long moment before continuing softly, his accented voice deadly as he remarked, “Our daughter looks adorable in that yellow and pink jumper, sleeping so peacefully in your bastardo’s arms. Both such easy marks. Oh, and your sister…she touches her belly like she protects something valuable. Or, perhaps I should add something a little more rewarding than morphine to your sister’s IV? Would you like that? So many possibilities, but I prefer the bullets myself. It would be such a shame if a bullet spattered any of their tiny brains against the wall, would it not? These little hick hospitals have such shit security, don’t they?”

  Harmony’s knees buckled and she slid down the wall. Tanner was close enough to see her baby. “Tanner, no! Please, don’t hurt them!” she pleaded as bile rose in her throat.

  “Do I have your attention now, bitch?” he snapped harshly. “Am I driving home the point that there’s not anything I won’t do. I have no love for that snot-faced brat. If I have to take her from you to bring you to heel…”

  “You don’t,” Harmony interrupted frantically. “Tanner, please, God, don’t hurt my baby!” Turning terrified eyes toward Honor, she mouthed, ‘He’s here. In the hospital!’

  “Ask him what he wants us to do,” Honor replied calmly, taking Harmony’s cold hand in hers and squeezing.

  “Tanner, tell me what you want me to do,” Harmony demanded, nearing hysteria as she clutched Honor’s hand like a lifeline.

  “I see I found the key to your cooperation,” he noted, amused by her desperation. “You and my ripe little peach – yeah, I know she’s there with you. You’re both going to go to the back corner of the East parking lot. You have ten minutes and if you alert any of those goons of yours, I put a bullet in Heaven’s pretty little head. Don’t worry, mujer, I’ll have a welcome wagon waiting for both of you. My employer is anxious to meet you both,” he returned with a sinister chuckle. “You’re in for such a treat. Diego makes me look like a good Catholic choirboy.”

  “Tanner, no! I’ll come. I’ll do whatever you want, but there’s no need to put Honor through this. Leave her out of this, please!” she bargained anxiously, meeting her younger sister’s serene blue eyes.

  “I’m going,” Honor said, keeping her voice low. Ignoring Harmony’s shaking head, she reached for the phone, pulling it easily from Harmony’s numb fingers. Pressing the cell against her ear, she took a deep breath. “We’re coming, Tanner. Just keep your bullets in your gun. If anything happens to any of my family, I swear to you, you’ll never get that land,” she promised before disconnecting the call.

  “No! No, Honor.” Harmony shook her head quickly from side to side, her hair slapping against her shoulders. “You are not walking out of here with me. You are not going to offer yourself up to Tanner like some kind of sacrifice. Forget it!” she yelled, unsteadily getting back on her feet.

  “You’d rather him kill one of our family? Heaven? Faith? Jake?” Honor questioned softly, her clear gaze steady on Harmony’s pale face. “That’s not something I can live with.”

  “No. There’s gotta be another way,” Harmony said frantically, running a hand through her hair as her stomach twisted into a knot and her mind searched for a way out of this mess. “There’s got to be something else we can do.” For a bare moment, she considered running back to the waiting room and screaming the truth at the top of her lungs. But then her mind played pictures of Tanner’s bullet finding Jake...or worse, her daughter. Not an option. Not at all.

  “There’s not,” Honor said simply. “Look, hopefully the family will realize quickly that we’re gone. They’ll piece it together. But I’m going with you. I could hear what he was saying, Harmony. I heard the threats. I could never let you face him alone, even if he hadn’t demanded I come with you.”

  “How the hell can you be so calm?” Harmony shrieked, her voice echoing in the small, tiled room. “My knees are trembling. My hands are sweating and I think I’m gonna be sick. But, you? You look like somebody just gave you a weather report you didn’t particularly like. How the hell is that even possible?”

  Taking Harmony by the arms, Honor shook her with more force than Harmony thought her little sister capable. Speaking quickly as she looked Harmony in the eye, she whispered, “I’m scared out of my mind. I’m terrified. But you need to listen to me. I don’t remember everything from what happened six years ago, but I remember this: Tanner Suarez and those men thrived on my fear… my panic. They got off on it! The more that I screamed… the more I begged, the more they enjoyed what they were doing to me. We are not giving them that satisfaction this time. This time, we do this on our terms.”

  “Honor,” Harmony whimpered brokenly, tears clouding her vision as guilt swamped her. “I’m so sorry. If it wasn’t for Heaven, I wouldn’t even consider asking this of you. You’ve been through eno-…”

  “Stop it. Don’t be sorry.” Honor shook her head. “This is my choice and there’s nothing they can do to me that I haven’t already survived once. And if this time I have to endure it to keep somebody I love safe, it’s worth it. Jake and Zeke and the others will find us, Harmony. You know that man of yours. He’s going to lose his mind and come find us, guns blazing. Zeke’s the same way. We’ll be okay. We just have to bide our time and stay alive long enough for them to get there. Now, we just need to pull it together and figure out a way in the next two minutes to leave them a clue,” she muttered, looking around the bathroom.

  Inhaling deeply, Harmony forced herself to think. She could text Jake, but she knew he’d react and tip whoever was watching them off, and she couldn’t put her daughter or anyone else in that kind of danger. “I’ve got it!” she said suddenly, jamming her hand into the pocket of her faded jeans and fishing for the tube she knew was in there. Pulling her Kissable Pink lipstick free, she waved it underneath Honor’s nose. “We leave a note.”

  “Perfect! Use the mirror as a notepad,” Honor ordered, gesturing toward the bank of mirrors above the sinks.

  Keeping the message short and sweet, Harmony wrote:

  Tanner has us. No choice. Taken from East Parking Lot. Help!!

  Nodding at the bright pink words, Honor quickly grabbed the makeshift marker and added:

  P.S. - Don’t waste valuable time being angry!

  Staring at Honor’s portion of the message, Harmony couldn’t help snorting at it. “Really? You’re telling them not to be angry? Peanut, they’re gonna be freaking homicidal when they find out what we’re doing, and I’m not so sure that once they’re done with Tanner and Diego that they won’t strangle you and me with their bare hands. Especially Zeke. Jake, I might be able to get around because of Heaven…but Ezekiel? Are you absolutely positive you wanna do this?”

  Grabbing Harmony’s hand, Honor tugged her sister toward the door. “We’ve used four of our minutes. We need to hurry.”

  Recognizing the stubborn set of Honor’s jaw, Harmony sighed. She was wasting her breath when her little sister got that look on her face. She might as well have been talking to a brick wall. “Fine,” she muttered, following her sister into the hallway and walking toward the stairwell as she muted her ringtone on her phone and shoved it into her bra, hoping like hell that whoever was waiting for them didn’t strip search her.

  They ran down the flight of stairs that led to the ground floor. Breathing deeply as they reached the glass doors leading into the parking lot, Harmony stopped Honor with a hand on her wrist. “Whatever happens, I love you. If something goes wrong and I tell you to do it, when you get a chance, you run, Honor. You don’t worry about me, and you don’t second guess yourself. Just
run.”

  “I’m not gonna leave you there!” Honor returned fiercely, looking at her oldest sister like she thought the woman had gone crazy.

  “Either you promise me, or I make a huge scene right here,” Harmony threatened, needing her sister’s word that if she could get her out of wherever they were going, then she’d go. She already felt like hell for risking her sister’s safety again.

  “Fine,” Honor relented even though her eyes flashed with anger. “But, you should know that nobody finds a bully attractive! Especially little sisters.”

  “I’m okay with that,” Harmony retorted as she pushed open the door and the late afternoon sunshine blinded them. “Tanner said someone would meet us in the back corner of the parking lot.” They began walking in the direction of the cars. “I think that’s them,” Harmony whispered, eyeing a dark sedan parked under a towering oak tree. Two men stood outside the vehicle, staring at them intently. “No Tanner,” Harmony murmured worriedly.

  Drawing closer, Harmony studied the men waiting for them. One was short and stocky, obviously hired muscle, but the other man was oddly familiar. He had Tanner’s lanky build, but his eyes were warmer… kinder. “I know him from somewhere,” she whispered, her footsteps slowing as she tried to place the man staring back at her. “Where do I know him from?” she murmured.

  “Does it matter?” Honor asked under her breath.

  She supposed it didn’t, but something in the man’s gaze made her shoulders relax a fraction. As they reached the trunk of the car, the pieces clicked into place. “The supermarket,” she whispered as the man took a step toward her. “You’re the man I saw at the supermarket.”

  “I am. I’ve been assigned to watch you for the past several weeks,” the Hispanic man replied, his tone emotionless. “My name is Dante de la Cruz and my employer would like a meeting with you. If you cooperate, this will go much more easily for you both. If you don’t, things will become unpleasant very quickly. Which way would you prefer to do this?” he asked, his threat vague, but there all the same.

  “We’re not going to fight you,” Harmony said softly, shaking her head. “Tanner made it clear that we don’t have any choice here.”

  “That’s right, he did, putas,” the shorter man bit out roughly, licking his lips obscenely as he eyed Harmony and Honor with a depraved gleam in his black eyes. “Get your hands behind your back,” he ordered, fingering a couple of zip ties he held in his hand as he reached out to grip Harmony’s arm painfully in his other.

  “Shut the fuck up, Juan. Keep a civil tongue in your head and take your hands the fuck off the woman,” Dante barked at the startled man. Dante waited until Juan dropped his hand away from Harmony like he’d been scalded, then he turned and backed the other man against the vehicle. “It’s not Tanner’s call what happens from here. I work for Diego Fuentes and so do you. We answer to him alone, and he wants these women delivered, unharmed and unafraid, in the next half hour. You are not going to restrain them and you aren’t going to intimidate them to the point where they’re shaking in their shoes and too scared to talk to the boss man and listen to what he has to say to them. Rein it in or I can rein you in. Got it?”

  The short man’s chest puffed out as he lifted his chin in a show of defiance. “Fuck you, Dante. Last I checked, you weren’t my mama.”

  “No, you’re Diego’s hired muscle, just like me. But, last I checked, I had El Jefe’s ear. If I tell him I needed to handle you because you became a problem, I don’t think he’ll blink. Do you? Especially after your unsanctioned drive-by in the middle of the fucking day.” Stepping closer, Dante raked his eyes over the other man, his burning eyes filled with visible contempt and disgust. “I told Fuentes you were a worthless piece of shit when he hired you, and you just proved me right with that clusterfuck you and Tanner created this afternoon. So, yeah, I think Diego will be fine with anyfuckingthing I decide to do here, pendejo. Now, do I need to see you as another problem in my fucking day, Juan? We both know how I usually prefer to handle them,” Dante warned with a deceptively mild tone, dropping one hand to the gun shoved into his low riding jeans.

  Harmony’s eyes widened. Had Diego’s goon just said the drive-by on the restaurant was unsanctioned? Diego hadn’t known Tanner was going to try and hurt them? Did that even matter? Diego Fuentes was still a very, very dangerous man intent on forcing her and her family to his will. He was responsible for Jake’s sister’s death. He wasn’t an ally. Essentially, she and Honor were still being kidnapped by a group of very bad men that might very well be even worse than Tanner had been, but it did make her feel better to know that her ex-husband hadn’t had his drug czar buddy’s support in his latest play to make her life hell.

  Lifting his hands in front of him, Juan backed down quickly. “No, hombre! Listen, Tanner told me that Diego wouldn’t care what he did to make things right as long as he got the job done. I thought that meant that the gloves were off. I had no fucking clue that Diego had put these bitches off limits. I was just trying to help a brother out of a hot spot.”

  “Get behind the wheel, Juan,” Dante ordered softly though his voice remained hard. “Your only responsibility from this point forward is transport. We’ll talk about your future with Fuentes’ crew later.” Waiting until the other man slunk away to climb inside the vehicle before turning his attention back to the women, Dante sighed. “We have no intention of harming either one of you, but the key to remaining safe is to keep quiet,” he advised them, nailing each of the girls with a severe glare. “You try to run, you’ll be stopped and I can’t guarantee it will be gently.”

  “M-my daughter, my other sisters?” Harmony questioned urgently. “Will Mr. Fuentes keep Tanner from hurting them?”

  “That depends on you,” Dante informed her grimly, then looked at each of the sisters. “Are either you going to give me trouble, Miss McKinnon?”

  “N-no.” Harmony shook her head rapidly, aware Honor was doing the same at her side.

  “Then your family should remain unharmed. Now, get in the car and keep quiet. We’ll arrive at our location shortly,” he said, jerking open the back passenger door and waiting until they entered before slamming it behind them.

  Jerking when the door clicked shut, Harmony exchanged a wary look with her pale sister, reaching for the other woman’s trembling hand and squeezing. “We’ll be okay,” she whispered as the man Dante had called Juan started the engine and Dante took his position in the front passenger seat. “We just need to hang on to each other.” Honor barely nodded and Harmony wondered if this would finally be the event that broke her strong sister. Cursing herself for allowing her to come with her, Harmony stared out the window as they began moving and the hospital faded from sight.

  One thing was certain. Come hell or high water, they had to find a way through this.

  The alternative was too terrifying to even contemplate.

  Chapter Fifty

  After fifteen minutes of waiting impatiently for Harmony and Honor to return to the waiting room, both Jake and Zeke had demanded that somebody go check on their errant women, and Faith and Margaret had volunteered for the job. Clearly, women traveled in packs where bathrooms were concerned, and nobody argued when they rose from their chairs and trudged off to search out two of the four McKinnon sisters.

  Unfortunately, what they’d found was the worst possible news they could report when they returned.

  “What the fuck do you mean they’re not here?” Jacob hissed, his arms tightening reflexively around the sleeping child in his arms. Staring at the frightened faces of Harmony’s sister and friend, Jake’s gaze went from one woman to the other and back again. “Where the hell are they?”

  “Harmony and Honor aren’t in the bathroom,” Faith explained shakily, her breaths coming in shallow gasps as she felt her husband’s strong arm wrap around her waist and pull her against him. “Th-there’s a note on the mirror. I think Tanner…”

  At the mere mention of Harmony’s ex-husband’s name, Z
eke was bolting from his chair and running toward the hallway while he spoke into his radio. Ice raced behind him, both men’s faces twisted with worry. Jake shifted Heaven quickly into his arms and carried her to Orla, depositing her gently into the elderly woman’s arms before rushing after them.

  Entering the bathroom at a dead run, he heard the door bounce against the wall as he stepped across the threshold. Then, he froze, his heart stuttering his chest as his eyes read the bright pink lipstick message scrawled across the mirror. “Motherfucker!” he growled, anger overwhelming every cell in his body as the muscles in his shoulders tightened. “Tell me that they weren’t stupid enough to actually take this douchebag’s bait!”

  “My unconscious deputy currently in the ER would indicate they were indeed that stupid,” Zeke snapped furiously, his hands forming fists at his side. “Before he lost consciousness, he told the nurses he was moving to intercept Harmony when someone got him from behind. He was found in the East Parking lot ten minutes ago. Thankfully, they didn’t kill him. Somebody just stun gunned the guy. He didn’t get a visual,” he growled, pacing back and forth in the small bathroom. Glancing at the mirror again, he seethed. “Don’t be angry! Honor wrote that part,” he shouted, gesturing toward the mirror. “That’s her fucking handwriting. She wrote me a message that says not to get angry! I swear to God, once I get her back, she’s not gonna sit for a fucking week. I’m gonna kill this son of a bitch, Jake. He’s mine,” he bit out, glaring at Tanner’s name on the mirror.

  “Not if I get to him first,” Jake growled coldly. “But I’m not gonna split hairs over who pulls the trigger as long as the motherfucker goes down. For good, this time.”

  “Zeke already ordered the hospital to turn over the security footage they have of the parking lot,” Ice shared with Jake calmly. “We should have it any minute now. Hopefully, we’ll get a make and model of the vehicle the girls were taken in and then we can move from there.”